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It's an interesting idea to take the problem to the county level and having sheriff's protect the interests of their smaller constituencies and the country. Highlighted in your post is the problem of corruption of the INS - I totally agree with this point and think that the INS needs to be completely dissolved. There is no fixing the corruption therein, an organization that allows the release of Malvo type criminals to prey upon our society while they go after sympathetic types like the British widow of a 9/11 WTC victim with full vigor, or while they refuse to expedite the reunification of an 11 year old girl with her parents in the States (who has every right to be here in the US with her Russian mother and American step-father) as highlighted on the O'Reilley Factor.

But as for corruption, sheriff's across the country are notorious for their corruption, and many are corrupted by the federal drug wars and are more concerned about reaping the benefits of their relationships with the DEA and state and federal pols than they are in dealing with immigration. That being said, some localities may find your idea a viable option - and like you said, likely the counties in the West that have the greatest problems with illegal immigrants from Mexico and other parts of Latin America.

I have lived and worked on the US-Canada border my entire life. Those of us living on the nothern border have a much different perspective on border issues, and frankly, we cringe at the idea of militarizing the US borders and what that would entail for our lives. People up here, on both sides of the border, regularly cross for business, shopping, recreation, sporting events, cultural events and festivals, music concerts, theater productions, and many people living up here have family that extend across the border. The recent incident on the Maine-Quebec border, in my view, typifies the problem of having the federal government step up its efforts to look tough on border issues. They step in, exert authority in a Draconian fashion, and take no account of local context nor the urgency that particular problems demand. If you don't recall, the recent incident up in Maine-Quebec involved the detention of a man who crossed the border to fill his gas tank without checking into customs first. Well, the customs check point was closed, and in the town where this took place, the gas station is in the US, but the driveway to enter the gas station is in Canada. So the Feds hold a French Canadian who lives on the border for a month because he bought a tank of gas, meanwhile they pass out 105 visas to people who are on the terror watch list? OMG!!

The point is, things on the northern border are qualitatively different than they are in the south, and even on the nothern border, things are different between east and west. So, you're idea concerning the use of local law enforcement to deal with immigration problems is a good one. Sheriffs, being locally elected, are far more likely to enforce laws and enact policies favorable to their local constituencies (corruption and ties to the feds, as mentioned above, aside).

Folks on the nothern border, however, are not immune, nor do we turn a deaf ear to the problems our countrymen in the south and west face with respect to illegal immigration. The state of New York has funding set aside to educate the children of illegal aliens even for college! It is absolutely crazy for politicians to not only ignore the enforcement of immigration laws, but they enact other laws and programs that actually encourage people to illegally enter and stay in the country. When I call my local pharmacy, I have to press "1" to hear the message in English! Of course, the pharmacy is a private business, so they can talk on the phone in any language they want (or should be able to), but when the state pays a lot of money to provide bilingual services, we all suffer because it raises the price of government and works to erode the cohesiveness that English being the lingua franca of our culture serves to promote. Jimminy Crickets! In Brazil, another country made up almost entirely of immigrant groups, you cannot even be a school teacher unless you are a native born Brazilian - this is an effort to promote the unique Brazilian culture that folks down there are afraid would dissolve into a quagmire if it becomes too fragmented by immigrant groups doing their own thing. Here in the US we have politicians and educators not only teacing tolerance of other cultures (ok, fine, we should all respect individuals for who they are, regardless of background) but they teach and promote the value of other cultures at the expense of and by ignoring the very existance of our own unique American culture.

I could go on and on, but will stop for now. If anything is to be gleaned from my mini-rant here, it's that the problem of immigration and border control is more complicated than many people view it. Again, this makes local control and enforcement of immigration vis-a-vis the sheriffs an idea worth considering for many communities. Unfortunately, there are many cultural, political, and governmental issues which influence the problems related to both legal and illegal immigration, and the security of our borders if we are to continue, at least with the facade, that we live in a free country.

Somalis are incredible welfare suckers. We just had the pleasure of having over a thousand suddenly descend on our sleepy little town. Since their arrival, they have doubled the city's welfare budget. They are receiving subsidized rent, free money from the gov't, food stamps, free medical care....the list goes on. Then they threatened an investigation into city funds when people started complaining (which they had every right to, the city funds the welfare budget largely from property taxes). They actually did get a lawsuit in on my town's failure to provide them with adequate English services. The city is fighting it, of course. The Somalis aren't learning English because they don't want to, not because the programs are not good enough.

They moved here from Georgia to take advantage of more generous welfare benefits. A lot of the households are one mother with a ton of kids. The dads stay in Georgia or another state, working and sending money. The moms send some of their welfare money to the dads. FYI if the dad is absent, the mom qualifies for more services. So there is a cute little welfare scam, reported in the papers, that no one will touch out of PC paranoia.